Watch: Adam Goldberg Teaches Us How to Vine

Adam Goldberg is, for lack of a better term, something of a renaissance man, at least in the creative sense. He's a photographer, musician, filmmaker, screenwriter, and, of course, an actor... It only makes sense that he would become, as other publications have anointed him, the King of Vine. His frantic and funny videos have been one of the highlights of the budding social media hub, and his technique has transformed the concept of what a Vine could, and should, be. Today, in celebration of the release of a new album from his sort-of one-man-band The Goldberg Sisters, we talked to him and had him upload a video to our own Vine to help us understand his particular genius — and maybe just help you Vine a little better.

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ESQUIRE.COM: So what have you been up to?

ADAM GOLDBERG: Primarily I have been prepping a film I had been writing over the past several years, to direct in October. And promoting the record, to the extent which one promotes a record when they don't like to play live, or really have a band with which to promote a record that sounds like it was made by a band. I've also been a bit more diligent about flossing and filing my nails.

ESQ: You're the King of Vine. How did that come about?

AG: I'm not sure I'm the king. I in fact am in semi-retirement. Some press entity or another anointed me in the very early days of Vine and it was a a lot of pressure, not to mention the sheer weight of the crown itself, which often clashed with most of the basic elements of my wardrobe. After doing a large job for Orange, the European cellular company in France, spending two weeks in Cannes making six-second quasi-trailers for each of the films in competition at the festival there, and then an additional 20 wherein I tracked my surrealistic adventures in Cannes with the ghost of Jean Cocteau, I swore I'd never make another. But still I did. Anyway, I finally am taking a breather these days. Prepping an actual film, which is something like 5,400 Vines, begins to put things back in some perspective. Although I still do think it's a fantastic, unique, and all-encompasing medium.

Esquire.com: What can you tell us about the movie you're working on?

AG: It's a coming-of-middle-age story called No Way Jose, wherein I direct myself playing a man of 39. Jose Stern, formerly Joseph Stern until he discovered he was one-eighth Mexican and christened (de-Jewished?) himself Jose. He's a fairly morose indie rocker, relegated to playing children's birthday parties when we open the film. He is, however, engaged to the perfect woman — until she discovers a secret about him. She kicks him to the curb and into his falling-apart-at-the-seams, married-with-children friend's house, from where he spends the rest of the film seeking counsel from his even older, grouchier, do-nothing, say-everything group of friends. It's funny mainly. Or meant to be. I am shooting many of the rehearsals like a film, with coverage, and editing them each night, to get a clearer sense of what works and doesn't. I'm very collaborative and love to improvise and elicit improvisation from actors. It's an intensive process, but really rewarding. The last time I directed a film, in 2003, there was no cheap way to edit your rehearsals at home in bed. Times have changed, and this old coot's trying to keep up.

ESQ: What exactly is the Goldberg Sisters? Who should seek out the new album?

AG:The Goldberg Sisters are my nom de band, while not actually being a band per se. I released my first record under the LANDy moniker, and while I got a lot of shit for the funny spelling, it helped delineate my music in a search engine crammed with Landys. Still, it created confusion, so I changed the name to The Goldberg Sisters, under which I put out my second album in 2011. The first LANDy record was a culmination of years of recordings with several different people: members of a band called The Black Pine, a few songs with Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips, some with just myself, a few with Aaron Espinoza of Earlimart, who took all these years of material and mixed them as I continued to make overdubs and finesse them at his studio, The Ship. My second album was made in a more traditional setting at his studio with a set group of musicians, though I played many of the instruments. But the current, Stranger's Morning, was recorded entirely in my garage (and vocals in my office upstairs) by Andrew Lynch, a fantastic musician in his own right and terrific engineer. I played and sang everything on this record, largely out of convenience and masochism. Somehow Andrew and I managed not to tear each other limb from limb during the 30 days we spent in my garage. A fact I'm proud of, in addition to the fact that we managed to get a pretty good '70s studio sound out of a glorified rehearsal space. Who should seek it out? I guess people who hate themselves but like lush personal pop.